


Sleeping Beauty

by Lue4028



Series: Rites of Passage [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Parentlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-04-05 18:18:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4190088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lue4028/pseuds/Lue4028
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The title says it all</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Mary is John's daughter, her mother is dead. So sad. *Funeral*

The door to the flat slams closed and John dumps his keys on the mantle with an angry clang, summoning Sherlock from his chambers. The sleuth emerges from the bedroom corridor in his sapphire dressing gown and pyjama bottoms, looking very pleased to see his favorite doctor, despite the ungodly hour displayed by the timer on the microwave.

“Did someone die then?” he asks in the spirit of conversation, as though he doesn’t already know the answer, grinning ear to ear.

“It’s not a good thing— in my profession Sherlock,” John informs him, whipping off his raincoat.

“How young?” Sherlock enquires with a smirk John can see through the back of his head. He grits his teeth and breathes through his nose. “Mary’s age?” Sherlock prods again, almost as if he delights in John’s anguish.

“ _Not now_ ,” John turns on him and growls, very touchy, then proceeds toward the kitchen to make breakfast. Sherlock is in his way, and since he seems intent on being annoying this morning, stays in his way. John is stalled and backpedals, then bristles, trying to contain his annoyance. He gives Sherlock a dirty look and shoves past. Sherlock eyes him cheekily as he goes.

John irritably acquires milk, bread and eggs from the fridge and scrambles them together to make French toast. Sherlock watches him in playful amusement, leaning in threshold with his arms crossed, with an unspeakably self-satisfied smile. John whole-heartily ignores him. It’s not until he’s engulfed by a set of long, languid arms from behind that he is fully alert to what his flatmate is doing. He freezes.

“Sherlock- what-” he stammers, confounded. There are a few spare moments where he tries to piece together what Sherlock is doing, with his hands around his shoulders and nose against his neck, but he’s interrupted.

“Come to bed,” Sherlock’s voice mutters into the nape of his neck.

The spatula clatters on the counter top. John’s mind hitches, unable to locate the words, formulate basic English. It just starts unwinding reels and reels of nonsensical gibberish, spinning out of control.

“Or the sofa, if you must,” Sherlock says, as John finds himself being hauled toward the living room, “Go to sleep. I can make breakfast.”

“ _Oh_.. really?” John asks, pleasantly surprised. He laughs weakly, realizing “come to bed” meant “I’m dragging you to bed”.

Sherlock furrows his eyebrows because John is being odd and light-headed. It doesn't occur to him his word choice was misleading or ambiguous at best. John twists around in Sherlock’s arms to meet his eyes.

“What’s gotten into you?” John ventures to ask, because Sherlock doesn’t normally make breakfast, or lunch, or dinner, or anything classified as _edible_.

“Well, you swapped the sugar for table salt. That’s a lethal dose of sodium chloride you have there,” he indicates the pile of toast, “Very resourceful, but I prefer to die by drug overdose rather than by food poisoning, for future reference,” Sherlock states, then turns on his heel into the kitchen, his robe fluttering behind him, which makes John wonder momentarily if Sherlock thinks he was actually trying to kill him.


	2. Chapter 2

“You made this?” Mary looks up from prodding her toast.

Sherlock is searching the fridge for jam. John always hides it from him because John likes to eat it, whereas Sherlock prefers using the preservatives in it for fixing dismembered fingers, so naturally there’s a conflict of interest.

Now where would a John think to hide something precious to him…? Sherlock notices the fine print on a yogurt tub that’s designated expiration date is three days past due. He opens it. Child’s play.

“Yes, why?” Sherlock smirks to himself, drawing a jar of strawberry jam out of the deceptive container.

Mary warily pushes the plate away, scraping the bottom against the acid-burnt table top. Sherlock frowns on the gesture, closing the fridge door.

“Rejected? On what grounds?” he wants to know.

“What do _you_ think?” 

“Just because I made it doesn’t mean it’s unfit for human consumption.”

“That’s exactly what it means.”

“That’s an arbitrary and unfounded accusation."

“Then you eat it,” she suggests, directing him to the plate. Sherlock opens his mouth with a comeback, but realizes doesn’t have a comeback for that. He looks at the toast blandly, then looks at Mary, then back at the toast, which hasn’t moved an inch.

“I don’t want to eat it,” Sherlock has to be honest, put off by how unappetizing it looks, because food, by default, is unappetizing to Sherlock.

“Like I thought. Your toast is suspect.” Mary concludes and slides off the chair onto her feet.

Sherlock deflates at the unfavorable verdict. “It tastes normal doesn’t it? You thought it was John’s. You know what he was going to give you? _Death toast_ ,” he huffs.

“Just because it tastes normal doesn’t mean you didn’t put ricin in it,” she says.

“I didn’t put ricin in it. John would be cross if I put ricin in it,” Sherlock says, fidgety, eyes glued to the jam, having taken a sudden interest in the picnic blanket-pattern of its cap. He briefly wonders what jam might taste like anyway, if John’s so head-over-hells for it.

"So maybe you fed it to John. Maybe that’s why he’s unconscious,” she suggests, using that play-along tone that police use when they want their subject to confess to a hypothetical. She does, conceivably, have a point. There’s means, motive, opportunity..

“Fine then. Don’t eat it. We’ll know if the toast was poisoned when he wakes up—” Sherlock sighs, apparently given up, pocketing the jam in his robe. Finders keepers.

“Or doesn’t,” Mary says. “I can make my own toast.”

Sherlock looks taken off-guard. “John says you can’t cook or you’ll burn yourself,” he talks to her as Mary retrieves an egg carton from the fridge.

Mary rolls her eyes in disbelief at his absurdity, closing the fridge. “Do I look like an idiot to you?”

“Do I look like an idiot to you?” Sherlock asks back, pointing at himself, “If John finds out about this _I’m_ toast.”

“Look, the way I see it, we’re both covered,” Mary says, placing a spoon in her mouth while she momentarily reaches up to get sugar from the cabinet, “You killed him, what’s he gonna do? Kill you back?”

“I didn’t kill him,” Sherlock grumbles like a chastised child, “Check his pulse if you don’t believe me.”

Mary puts the sugar on the counter and scampers over to her father, checks his pulse and shrugs. Sherlock’s eyebrows furrow in consternation. He races over to check his pulse, two fingers flying to his jugular. John's pulse isn't quite as elevated as Sherlock's, but normal, all the same. He sighs half in relief, half in annoyance he actually fell for that, and Mary flashes him a cheeky grin. Sherlock rolls his eyes.

“You have a problem with authority, much like the criminal underclass,” he snips, recovering his usual calm and detachment.

“Uhuh.”

“John!” Mrs. Hudson hollars from the stairwell.

“He’s incapacitated Mrs. Hudson what is it?” Sherlock asks in an almost patient voice.

“What? What do you mean? What have you done to him?”

“ _Nothing_ , I—“

“Well, your mail is everywhere! You’ve been putting it off for too long. Really, you ought to get a handle on your domestic life, you two. I know you’re busy but figure it out. I’m not your housekeeper.”

“As I said, John is out of service,” Sherlock replies civilly.

“Well, _you_ are not, are you Sherlock.”

Sherlock’s annoyance is palpable, temper ticking like a time bomb.

“Problem?” Mary blinks innocently.

“I can’t believe this.” Sherlock grumbles and swerves around the threshold, down the steps.


	3. Chapter 3

“Can we wake him up now?” Mary complains, hearing Sherlock enter the flat. She’s lying on her side next to John on the sofa, back turned, hands flattened together and placed under her ear like a pillow. John himself is lying on his good shoulder, having wedged himself into the cease of the backboard, clothed in day-old office attire and a tie he hasn’t bothered remove.

“I suppose you could try,” he remarks absently, flipping through the mail, “not that it’d be any use at this point, seeing that he’s going into REM.”

“What’s REM?” Mary turns her head to him, and Sherlock glances up, taking note of her confusion.

“No man’s land, darling. He’s a goner. I can feel his delta waves from here,” Sherlock explains waving his hand, trying to brush them off before they interfere with his brainwaves. He files through the stack of letters at a pace approaching that of the speed of light, clearly loosing patience.

He give up halfway through the pile and tosses it all under the hearth, generating a cathartic explosion of flame (some of them might have been cheques).

Obviously dissatisfied with Sherlock’s assessment, Mary reverts back to John’s peacefully slumbering form with a ‘hmph’, arms crossed. Undeterred, she glares at him with narrow eyes as if he might be feigning his unconsciousness, and without a second thought, stands to full height on the seat cushion, steps over him up onto the sofa arm, and balances herself on the backboard, where she intends to springboard off and land on John.

Sherlock interrupts her remorselessly executed descent, catching her in midair. “Now, now, you mustn’t do that,” he chides her, setting a very disgruntled seven-year old on the carpet, “You’ll interrupt his beautiful dreams.”

Mary pauses to consider this. It hadn’t occurred to her.

Sherlock takes up his violin as he walks over to the window sill, where he plays an eerie triplet of sharps on the upbow, then halts full stop. Slowly the bow travels back down again as he stares at the drab world through the sifting curtains, old buildings and rainy weather.

“What’s he dreaming about?” she asks, seated on the floor so that she can better observe him.

He glances sidelong at John, playing a sinister vibrato note. “Open heart surgery.” The note wears on.

He digresses into something dreadful and D minor.

“What’s he thinking about now?” Mary asks not two minutes later, her chin resting on her overlapped wrists at the edge of the sofa seat. 

Sherlock glances over with an immediate “Sarah,” because it’s obvious, bow sweeping against the strings as he cadences further and further down the fingerboard. It’s like he’s trying to see if he can break the window with the right assortment of angry high-pitched notes. He gives up and removes the violin from his chin.

“How about now?” she asks, as John shifts uncomfortably in his sleep at the ungodly noise.

He glances over at John, pensive. “Magical pixy horses,” he decides is a good answer.

“Is that code for sex?” Mary smirks.

“What’s sex?”

Two little words and an honest-to-god question mark that speak volumes. Mary tries a different approach.  
“Why does he think about _magical pixy horses_ so much?”

“I haven’t the faintest,” he sighs with disinterest, his bow resuming its oscillations. He twists the fine adjustment knobs at the base of the fingerboard while playing two strings, then reverts back to the coarse pegs at the top, finally bothering to set the Stradivarius in tune.

“But you know everything,” she insists and Sherlock sighs.

“You know darling, there are some things that even I don’t know.”

She looks unconvinced, tilting her head as she asks, “But don’t you have magical pixy horses with John?” Sherlock is trying to pull off a proper-sounding scale when the bow scampers off center on the strings.

“Me?” he asks for clarification, just in case she meant the other person standing in the middle of the room, though it sounds more like _I beg your pardon_ the way he says it.

“No I meant the cadaver,” she replies in what might be sarcasm, but Sherlock has never really had an ear for these things. It’s unlikely she’s asking the cadaver. It’s sliced in parts and freeze dried in the freezer. Also, John doesn’t really have a thing for cadavers. Sherlock on the other hand—

“Yes, you,” she says impatiently, drawing his attention back to the conversation.

Sherlock’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. The who-you-slept-with trivia question is a gimme. He never gets it wrong. He looks over himself to see if anything is out of line, and turns around in the process, kind of like a dog chasing its tail. Nothing. (Might even be a virgin?)

“Explain your reasoning,” he says and Mary looks surprised, even confused he’s asking such an obvious question.

“My reasoning is... common sense.”

Sherlock tsks. “You can’t make a deduction unsubstantiated by data, Mary, what’s the data,” he says, turning back to the window with his bow ready to sweep against the strings.

“That I exist. Me. I’m the data,” she says, flailing her arms.

Sherlock pauses, curious.

“What?” he turns to her again, releasing the instrument from his chin.

“You do know how babies are made right?” she asks. Sherlock looks awkward, gaze flitting aside for a moment, but thankfully he returns with the right answer after a quick deduction.

“Magical pixy horses.”

“Exactly. So.. how else could I have been born?”

“well, he—“ Sherlock starts, then realizes it’s surprisingly not a question he has an immediate answer to. ”Hm…” he hums in thought. 

Sherlock Holmes is indeed stumped by the question, tongue-tied and inevitably thwarted in every alternative explanation that occurs to him. Her argument is admittedly convincing- the simplest explanation is, in fact, that Mary is the result of Sherlock having magical pixy horses with John.

“How _do_ you exist?” Sherlock points the tip of the bow at her, like the thought had never occurred to him.

“We’ll have to think on this,” he decides.

“Occam’s razor,” she shrugs.

“It’s not like he could have had magical pixy horses with someone else. He said that I’m..” Sherlock muses on, searching for the precise terminology John had used.

“Girlfriend repellent,” she supplies.

That’s the one.

“I must have deleted..” Sherlock mutters, putting a hand to his forehead.

“Talking to you is kind of like talking to the drug addict Wiggins,” Mary says, watching Sherlock trying to piece together where Mary came from, or why, in fact, her name is Mary.

“Perhaps Wiggins could tell us,” Sherlock says brilliantly.

“Wiggins overdosed two years ago," she regrets to inform him and Sherlock scowls.

“Useless,” he tsks, temperamental.

“I doubt he’d be much help anyways. If you can’t deduce it I don’t think he can.”

“We’ll have to ask John when he wakes,” he resolves and sets the violin in its velvet-lined case, sliding the bow into position above it.

“Can’t we wake him up already?” she whines, looking up from her father’s peacefully clocked-out face.

“How do you propose we do that?” Sherlock replies, slumping into his leather armchair and aligning his fingers in a prayer-like manner.

“Hey dad. Dad.” Mary shakes his shoulder, but John’s head swivels lifelessly. “Daaad,” she whines, like seven year olds do. She huffs when she finally grows tired of shaking him.

“Well we could jump on him,” she suggests, clearly in favor of the idea.

Sherlock gives her a doleful look.

“Jump him _then_ throw him off the fire escape.”

Sherlock shakes his head and rolls his eyes, head leaning on his hand. Portrait of a man resigned to his inevitable fate- boredom. He reaches for his phone to curb his symptoms.

“If that doesn’t work then, the only recourse would be to kiss him.”

“Kiss him?” Sherlock retorts, amidst scanning through police reports on his phone, “I fail to see how that would improve the situation.”

“It wakes people up.”

Sherlock frowns, looking up from the glow of the screen, his expression so starkly clinical and laden with skepticism that it speaks for itself.

“It’s true. I’ve seen it,” she insists.

“That’s absurd.”

“I swear! It’s in every fairytale known to date- don’t you read?” Mary asks, and Sherlock rolls his eyes. He switches over to news when the reports run dry, re-immersing himself in the mobile version of The Standard aka the ongoings of the stupid people.

“Do be scientific. If a person is unconscious they’re unconscious. You can’t wake them up with a kiss anymore than you can with a pin prick. And John’s basically comatose,” he declares with a dismissive turn of hand, then rests his chin on it again and spins through the rest of Mycroft’s daily fabrications.

“Okay fine. Let’s be ‘scientific’. I’ll prove it to you,” Mary decides, catching Sherlock’s (vague) interest. He glances over pointedly-not out of curiosity, trying his best to look bored and disbelieving.

Mary props up and leans forward, giving John a kiss. But the fact remains John doesn’t stir.

Mary and Sherlock exchange looks.

“Maybe you have to kiss him,” she concedes, noting the lack of any response or improvement whatsoever.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It won’t work unless it’s true love,” she says insistently.

“What does that have to do with me?"

“Don’t be stupid,” she rolls her eyes.

“You’ll have to forgive me,” he digresses, rising from his chair, “if the popularized excuse for acting stupid called love is not a notion I subscribe to. There is, after all, a reason why he calls me a _machine_ —” He tries a random book off the shelf beneath the bison skull, but realizes he has it memorized verbatim, and pauses awkwardly on the first page. These are the pitfalls of photographic memory.

“Yeah, that you’re both stupid.”

“What is it the lot of us fools say?” he remarks boredly at the window pane, still running with rain, “Ignorance is bliss.” He almost looks depressed. “Or at least better than tearing your mind to pieces.”

“Oh, don’t do that,” she says in exasperation, rising to her feet.

“What?” He turns to her with that innocent expression on his face, framed by the window, book in hand.

“Be in denial.”

“In denial of what?” The man is a walking punchline. The book he’s holding is his nemesis, Oscar Wilde, turned to _The Importance of Being Earnest._

“That you are to John Watson as John Watson is to jam,” she says, because there’s no plainer way to say it. She walks a few paces from the sofa to his music stand near the window still, glowing silver on their silhouettes.

“I am not obsessed with John Watson,” he replies like its laughable, although the fact that it does sound a lot like denial gives him pause, “at least I hope not.” (that would be unhealthy)

“Boysenberry.”

Sherlock looks genuinely taken aback by the suggestion. "God forbid."

“There’s only one way to be certain,”she tells him in a gently persuasive voice.

“Darling, I can’t,” he says awkwardly, side-stepping around her.

“Why not.”

“It wouldn’t work,” he says, turning his back, but she runs around him again.

“Pleeeeease?” She whines, sounding like her age, and Sherlock is taken off guard by the sudden display of childish appeal.

“You can try that face on John but not on me,” he says cleverly, smirking so that they mirror each other with two charmingly beautiful, sociopathic smiles.

“After all, I taught you how to do that,” he says dismissively, swerving around her again and crossing over the corner of hearth rug to the breakfast table, “This book ought to be burned.”

“Would you rather be bored?” she asks from behind him.

Sherlock heaves a sigh that sounds like a trapped animal, thumping the book on the table edge with a dramatic _thud_.


	4. Chapter 4

He stands by the tableside, the satin outline of his shoulders like a drawn archer’s bow, head thrown backward at the sky and imploring that it come crashing in an open display of the immense, unknowable suffering it is to be a drama queen.

“Fine. Let me show you how it’s done,” he says at last, coattails twirling and shoes clicking as he turns on his heel.

Mary lights up with bright, exuberant smile, at once feeling validated and victorious, but he skips past the blondes in favor of disappearing into the kitchen, leaving Mary confused as to what he’s doing. She listens to him shuffling through the cabinets until he reappears with a packet of PG tips in hand. He leans down with a hand on his hip and the teabag between his fingers, drawing her attention to the object, which is purely unremarkable, just your average overpriced bag of tea, wrapped in white filter paper and tapered to its classic pyramidal shape.

“Drugs,” he explains very carefully to her, “are the solution to everything.” She nods. “Observe,” he says and places it beneath John’s nose like sal volitale. The soldier stirs, roused by the sudden and strong scent of caffeine.

“ _Sherlock..?_ ” he murmurs as he comes to, his voice cracking with sleep.

“Good morning John,” Sherlock beams, suddenly sunny in disposition. Mary blinks at John from over Sherlock’s shoulder miraculously.

“Sherlock what are you _doing_ —“

“You sound distressed.” Sherlock notes.

“A bit. Yeah,” he admits, give or take.

“Whatever for?”

“Because you can’t let the baby play with a— a gun is not a _toy_ —” he tries to explain, then trails off, leaving the pair hanging in suspense. Sherlock blinks and Mary scowls, confused by the non-sequitur.

“What..?” Mary breaks the silence, because clearly she’s missed something.

“How many times do I have to tell you? Sherlock…” John says distraught, head lolling side to side fitfully.

“He’s… sleep talking,” Sherlock frowns. He gets the feeling he’s had this conversation before. He probably had left Mary alone with a gun at some point during her infancy, but now she’s a better shot than John (not that John is aware) so it ended up being a plus.

“God damn it,” Mary says petulantly. (She watches too many American TV programmes rated MA)

“Mary—” Sherlock chides her, but Mary has taken off already, leaving John’s side in an angry, temperamental little whirl.

“Damn it _Mycroft_ ,” she corrects herself. Sherlock smiles as she slams the door to his room.

“That’s better,” he smirks, because as far as he’s concerned, _god_ is the worser curse word and it is a much more advisable to blame Mycroft instead.

“Where were we?” Sherlock asks the still-incapacitated blond he’s still bent over.

Seated beside him on the sofa, he’s leaning on one arm as he gazes idly at John, his head canted to the side and absorbed in thought. He’s never kissed anyone before as far as he can recall*, which is not saying much, nonetheless he wonders what it’s like.  
He immediately stops the train of thought in its tracks when he discovers what he’s thinking about and grows annoyed with himself, realizing he’s become enchanted by the ridiculous notion Mary’s planted in his head.

Always so curious, even if it's about something as stupid as this, he thinks, looking at the doctor, to his disbelief, with a longing way about him.

He’s tempted to lean forward, then lean forward an inch more, and eventually he caves, drawn forward out of experimental curiosity.

“You are… the most infuriating person on earth,” John whispers reproachfully, stalling Sherlock about a breath away.

“Well I could say the same for you,” Sherlock replies boredly. He hates to be anticlimactic but it’s unspeakably selfish, sleeping after a twenty-four hour shift. The entire morning has been insufferable as a result.

“Oh really? Do you wake up to a murder scene waiting to happen everyday?” Sherlock smirks at that. No, of course not. That would be too good to be true.

“Your life must be a running nightmare,” says Sherlock, taking a sort of cruel delight in winding him up.

“It _is_ actually—“

“Ever wonder why that is?”

“Really is a mystery..!” he returns, his annoyance apparent.

“You’re angry with me aren’t you,” Sherlock asks with feigned innocence.

“Brilliant, brilliant deduction,” he congratulates him, every word seasoned with sarcasm.

Sherlock studies his face, hesitant. “John.. would you punch me if I kissed you, hypothetically speaking?” he asks on a more serious note, but there’s no response this time. Only the drone of traffic and the patter of rain.

“John?” Sherlock asks again, touching his face briefly before it twists away, his cheek falling against the leather. He huffs at John’s lack of cooperation.

“Sherlock,” he catches John say, his voice in conflict, “It’s ok. Yes, of course I forgive you,” he mumbles nonsensically, turning his other cheek to face someone nonexistent, clearly immersed in his dream world.

Sherlock draws back, seeing that he’s lost his attention.

He can’t imagine how he must look with the hideous, longing expression on his face. He glances over his shoulder, confirming Mary is not likely to return for now. Suffices to say that was the last straw.

That leaves Sherlock perched precariously beside his latest temptation, lying defenseless on the sofa, in a situation much like the one he found himself in with the cab driver, with a burning curiosity that has largely proven itself to be a self-detriment. An idea, just a simple idea so easily testable, clinging with increasing tenacity to the edges of his mind, until it’s completely consumed him.

“What is ‘true love’ anyway?” the sociopath muses to himself as he draws forward, looking at John up through his eyelashes, “some kind of an… oxymoron?” he says, the words lagging behind, the tail end of a thought.

He closes his eyes, leaning down until there's nothing between them. When he draws back, he finds the doctor still obliviously unconscious, looking like a proper angel when he sleeps. How fitting.

He waves a hand in front of his closed eyes and frowns.

“Oh come on,” he sighs with his elbow braced against the leather, gazing down at John listlessly. “You can’t tell me I didn’t do it right.”

“Didn’t do what right?” is a response he wasn’t quite anticipating.

Sherlock stares at John, blinking up at him from the couch, with a set of startled blue eyes and lips parted speechlessly, but before he can utter anything other than “Um-“

“What time is it?” John asks, sitting up and Sherlock backs off of him as naturally as possible. Thankfully John is fantastic at asking all the wrong questions.

“Two o’clock,” he replies.

“That’s strange. I have this odd craving for jam—” he says with some consternation, as jam is typically a breakfast food.

“That’s not all that strange John,” Sherlock corrects him, for the record.

**Author's Note:**

> The end. If you would like an additional chapter, let me know.


End file.
